Carrot and Stick

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

In the latest time I'm seeing too much people leaving the game, personally I saw 3 friends quitting the game and if it was possible I would get the message: "there is noone left in the guild and has been disbanded"...

The problem is the game is providing just farming with no purpose... nowdays a good equipped char can do almost everything in solo, if you are with friends became too easy and there noone care anymore about death.

Here arrives the carrot and stick philosophy:
currently if you die, you lose nothing, and if you kill the enemy you get something that noone care... artifacts are now 90% useless, and if you don't have something specific to buy you don't even care about gold.

To restore the balance we should do something like this (obviously is a raw idea, so take it as something that can be improved):

DEATH: remove the insurance prices and make that if you die you lose 10% of your gold, if you finish the gold the insurance is gone. If you have less than 100k in bank each item will cost like now.

GOLD: remove the phisical gold and make it virtual so you can have as much as you want in bank, but you can't keep gold at home, inside vendors, etc...
The gold should stay phisical just on loot and in your backpack/on the ground.

RESURRECTION: when you resurrect you should be unable to fight/be attacked for a short time (2 minutes).

REWARDS: rewards should be something desirable like cool deco items or useful arties, or just a temporary bonus for your character. For example you could get a 1k luck bonus for 24 hours instead of getting an item.
In any case what you should always get a reward even if is just an applause sound, in order to keep the morale high and give you the wish to try again for something better.

About the rewards there should be some kind of medals for each character like the 90% of the new games already have... something like: "you killed all the champions" or also something fun, just something that do not requires farming.

There are also many other things that follows that philosophy and could be added to the game to make it more challenge and fun at the same time, this ones were just few examples...
The only sure thing is that if nothing will be done this game will die... not dead like EA close it, but dead like the players morale will be underground and people will play just for habit and not for fun (and we are not so far ...).

Stratics Veteran

I think your assessment is a little off. The items you list may make the game more challenging but not more enjoyable and that's the problem. Adding more pixels or titles is not the answer, making daily life in game more difficult is also not the answer. Most people's frustration is with broken systems and poor customer support. I say fix those things and you'll see less people leave.

Fixes need to be made to a great number of systems before we can even begin to get folk back. Factions being a major one. Customer support needs improved. EA needs to quit treating it's customers like thieves, cheats and villains and start treating them like other companies do... with a lot of R.E.S.P.E.C.T. .

Secondly... they need to bump the learning curve for new players. It's impossible to figure out what the heck the game is about... where folk are, how to find anyone... how to get help... and numerous other things since there is no support at EA. The play guide on UO.com is a JOKE. Most of it is horribly out of date... The ingame new user experience doesn't even touch on 99% of the game...

RP and PvP used to be what held a bunch of folk in the game... since that's all dominated by either zerg guilds in Fel or tiny very spread out pockets of RP communities on fewer and fewer shards.... there is less and less to keep folk in the game. As more and more folk leave either from the mismanagement of EA or the lack of support or friends ingame the fewer and fewer of us that remain are growing increasingly fed up with the constant grind of new events. Yes nice rewards..... but OMG bad grinds to get them... and with no one to share them with what fun are they?

Stratics Veteran

You really think that making the game more of a pain in the ass would make people want to play it?

What you describe is less a new challenge than it is a punishment for active playing. Don't take the risk and go toe to toe with Chief P. Don't armor ignore Travesty repeatedly to get it off of a guildmate it's attacking. Whatever you do, don't behave heroically.

UO is unlikely to ever regain its peak but based on what I've personally seen in-game it's way up from its lowest point.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

I think your assessment is a little off. The items you list may make the game more challenging but not more enjoyable and that's the problem. Adding more pixels or titles is not the answer, making daily life in game more difficult is also not the answer. Most people's frustration is with broken systems and poor customer support. I say fix those things and you'll see less people leave.

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yes, more pixel do not improve the game, but give a purpose... there are not many broken systems around, and even if the game was perfectly working we will be at the same point.
The only broken thing around is the players morale, since SA came out everyone expect something fun to do instead of something else to farm...

The last thing that really amused me for several hours was the battle of ophidian vs bane chosen, that system was something really enjoyable with friends. This system with few more arrangements like adding more powerfull monster while you get near the last banner and a final boss, and obviously different factions to play with could be a real entertaining activity
The latest events are fun the fist hour or 2 then just became another thing to farm, especially this city loyalty thing

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

You really think that making the game more of a pain in the ass would make people want to play it?

What you describe is less a new challenge than it is a punishment for active playing. Don't take the risk and go toe to toe with Chief P. Don't armor ignore Travesty repeatedly to get it off of a guildmate it's attacking. Whatever you do, don't behave heroically.

UO is unlikely to ever regain its peak but based on what I've personally seen in-game it's way up from its lowest point.

-Galen's player

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A game is fun if there is a bit of challenge and you are rewarded properly for what you have done. If everything is easy and the only thing to do around is farm something, where is the fun?

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

A game is fun if there is a bit of challenge and you are rewarded properly for what you have done. If everything is easy and the only thing to do around is farm something, where is the fun?

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I think my favourite event was getting the Candle of Love. When comparing that event with the current grindfest it shows how far downhill we have gone. I think that quest filled your criteria above perfectly. I found it fun, there was a bit of a challenge and you got a personally named Candle of Love if you made it. The quest took a fair time to do and ran for some time, it was reasonably complex and held your interest. I took four characters through it before it finished and now have the four candles all with said char names on them. It was even possible to do the quest with a mule character, harder but possible and it didnt involve running round a single city endlessly.

The satisfaction I got from finishing each time far exceeds the satisfaction of obtaining a town banner for arresting half the population of Sosaria and clearing rubbish and putting out fires for weeks and weeks. That has been a boring grind and fits nowhere into the category of 'fun'.

Stratics Veteran

Without comparing it to what's going on now, the Candle of Love quest was indeed great.

It was very moving to my character to be there in that cavern with the original Candle.

However I do remember complaints about it. That it was a grind. That it was disruptive to player housing around the Shrines. That the reward was just pixel crack with your name on it.

Half the reason why I find it hard to take many complaints about this game seriously, even the ones I agree with, is that I've literally heard all of them before. We get things that are trashed at the time and venerated only in retrospect.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Your idea of gold sinks is totally whacked. 10% of my gold? How is that fair if I get killed upon disconnect when comcast decides to work on my lines and I lose 10% (40 mil) of the gold I have in the bank across my account/characters (in your new checkless system)? I'll quit tomorrow.

We do need legitimate gold sinks and reasons to spend cash - but penalizing on death is NOT the way.

What this game needs is more engaging systems and reasons to play the game. Something more than silly hold the faction sigals play.

What if......

What if we had monthly challenges where 'teams' can sign up for various scheduled battles. The winning montly team gets a permenant title to their characters paperdoll and some sort of time reward like a cool hair dye color that lasts 1 month. Next month standings are cleared and it starts again.

What if dungeons need to be fully *cleared* before they respawn instead of sitting at one area killing same monster over and over again?

What if we had new lands that change with new things to explore monthly?
What if there were random dungeon entrances you had to find by exploring sosaria each month?

What if they made armor SIMPLIER and easier to build suits instead of the mathmatics trainwreck that includes multiple runics, skills and excel spreadsheets?

What if special titles and stats were kept and published for arenas for PvP? Like a way to see who fought who in the arena each month with overall stats? This would show guild tags too so you could see if someone was purposely fighting somene in same guild or over and over for stats vs taking on 'all comers'.

What if instead of bods - players could create 'bods' for suits of armor they would like crafted with requirements and a payment. A smith could then take the 'bod' and upon completing the suit that matches requirements - receive payment? Then said player could 'pick up the suit' when done?

What if we had shardwide vendor search so you didn't spend half your time trying to find things not for sale?

What if the current 'grinding' systems were made more realistic and fun? The current grind for town loyalty, community collections (88,000 battle axes for mace and shield - really???), heartwood quests etc etc are so mind numbing they completely suck.

What if our dev team actually played the game and understood the frustrations instead of dorking with existing systems and making them worse/more complicated? Take smithing/crafting and the changes for imbuing and reforging. Its insanely complicated now. I don't even know where to begin to start explaining it to returning vets. If I had taken 2 years off and come back - I'd quit again. Instead of it being a GAME and being FUN - it has become WORK.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Your idea of gold sinks is totally whacked. 10% of my gold? How is that fair if I get killed upon disconnect when comcast decides to work on my lines and I lose 10% (40 mil) of the gold I have in the bank across my account/characters (in your new checkless system)? I'll quit tomorrow.

We do need legitimate gold sinks and reasons to spend cash - but penalizing on death is NOT the way.

What this game needs is more engaging systems and reasons to play the game. Something more than silly hold the faction sigals play.

What if......

What if we had monthly challenges where 'teams' can sign up for various scheduled battles. The winning montly team gets a permenant title to their characters paperdoll and some sort of time reward like a cool hair dye color that lasts 1 month. Next month standings are cleared and it starts again.

What if dungeons need to be fully *cleared* before they respawn instead of sitting at one area killing same monster over and over again?

What if we had new lands that change with new things to explore monthly?
What if there were random dungeon entrances you had to find by exploring sosaria each month?

What if they made armor SIMPLIER and easier to build suits instead of the mathmatics trainwreck that includes multiple runics, skills and excel spreadsheets?

What if special titles and stats were kept and published for arenas for PvP? Like a way to see who fought who in the arena each month with overall stats? This would show guild tags too so you could see if someone was purposely fighting somene in same guild or over and over for stats vs taking on 'all comers'.

What if instead of bods - players could create 'bods' for suits of armor they would like crafted with requirements and a payment. A smith could then take the 'bod' and upon completing the suit that matches requirements - receive payment? Then said player could 'pick up the suit' when done?

What if we had shardwide vendor search so you didn't spend half your time trying to find things not for sale?

What if the current 'grinding' systems were made more realistic and fun? The current grind for town loyalty, community collections (88,000 battle axes for mace and shield - really???), heartwood quests etc etc are so mind numbing they completely suck.

What if our dev team actually played the game and understood the frustrations instead of dorking with existing systems and making them worse/more complicated? Take smithing/crafting and the changes for imbuing and reforging. Its insanely complicated now. I don't even know where to begin to start explaining it to returning vets. If I had taken 2 years off and come back - I'd quit again. Instead of it being a GAME and being FUN - it has become WORK.

Diablo III release date May 15. You can pre-order on Amazon.

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you see? it's not hard to get ideas on how improve the game
I like many of these and also I'd like to see random things happenings while wandering around

The true issue is that everything requires to farm something, and this is what kills the game...

Stratics Veteran

Its not hard to get new ideas - the problem is the devs SPEND THEIR TIME ON THE WRONG THINGS!

They keep putting in more grinds that no one likes and wonder why people leave in droves. Game not a job.... They should repeat this daily to themselves.

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It is particularly frustrating when players post ideas or past events that they liked. Small tweaks to some of these, and you could retread old invasions, themes, fights, etc. every couple of months. Over time, this would be very simple to keep up, and then the Degvs could focus on the larger picture.

Example: Tun bakc on ToT for 1.5 months. In that time, work it into another champ spawn (Oaks for example), and run that for 1.5 months. etc.
Redo the holloween sperkles, but change uop the rewards and storyline (to remove the halloweeness of it).

A game is fun if there is a bit of challenge and you are rewarded properly for what you have done. If everything is easy and the only thing to do around is farm something, where is the fun?

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There's making it challenging, and then there is discouraging people from doing certain types of things that they would normally do otherwise, such as fighting where they could lose a lot of gold in a short amount of time just for dying - you'd have to have a lot better rewards for that kind of risk than what was mentioned in this thread. This isn't exactly EVE Online where people are willing to risk and lose everything in PvP for a huge payoff.

GalenKnighthawke in other posts, Deckard on UO.UltimaCodex.com, and several others (including me) have complained about our biggest problem, which is the lack of players. If we had more players, there wouldn't be so many complaint threads and so many people leaving.

In the latest time I'm seeing too much people leaving the game, personally I saw 3 friends quitting the game and if it was possible I would get the message: "there is noone left in the guild and has been disbanded"...

The problem is the game is providing just farming with no purpose... nowdays a good equipped char can do almost everything in solo, if you are with friends became too easy and there noone care anymore about death.

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People are always going to leave UO for various reasons, but a lot leave because they are bored. UO used to be a Massively Multi-Player Online Role Playing Game and a lack of players in a game like UO leads to a lot of boredom.

Before anybody says shard mergers, shard mergers would do nothing but disrupt communities, piss off a lot of players and give many a reason to leave, and give the impression that UO is going to be shut down soon. UO isn't Warhammer where shard mergers don't cause people to lose houses they've had for many years, and every time Warhammer goes through a round of shard mergers, it edges that much closer to closure.

If I was asked to list the biggest thing that currently bothers me, it's that the management seems to have thrown in the towel on attracting new players. Jeff Skalski told us it wasn't a focus for them. UO can't limp along on the hopes that a bunch of ex-players will return. They are ex-players for a reason. I know a lot of ex-players come back - I'm one of them, but they'll stick around until something once again draws them away, or they run into the same issues that caused them to leave before. There are a lot of big upcoming things that are going to tempt UO players. Maybe not the diehard UO players that refuse to look at other games, but a lot of UO players who have left and returned are liable to leave again, or not login much, which might as well be leaving.

Maybe we could get UO/BioWare management interested in attracting new players by referring to them as future ex-players that they might be able to bring back

Stratics Veteran

yes, more pixel do not improve the game, but give a purpose... there are not many broken systems around, and even if the game was perfectly working we will be at the same point.
The only broken thing around is the players morale, since SA came out everyone expect something fun to do instead of something else to farm...

The last thing that really amused me for several hours was the battle of ophidian vs bane chosen, that system was something really enjoyable with friends. This system with few more arrangements like adding more powerfull monster while you get near the last banner and a final boss, and obviously different factions to play with could be a real entertaining activity
The latest events are fun the fist hour or 2 then just became another thing to farm, especially this city loyalty thing

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So why dont they keep that in game why does almost every event they creat have to be a short time only That i never did understand i mean they spend time to creat the event why cant they make them so they could be permanent (add to more things to do in game)

Fun for me maybe is a bit diffrent than for anyone else but fun can be so extremly simple sometimes a book at the lowest lvl of covetous with the names and thoughts of people that came that far would be fun to read even better a quest giver from a past event that would take me on a new journey to find a place i may never visited before or that i have forgot about

Few rules that i think the devs should always follow when they creat events

1 If possible make the event permanent
2 An easy to get reward some people cant find it in them to grind for a reward just give them a I took part of this reward
3 There should be at least one reward that is very hard to get for people that like rare stuff
4 When they do chain quests there should never be a moster that is so hard to do u need an army to kill it (Night terror) people already spent time to do the other steps of the quest finding a brick wall that prevent u from finish the quest is anoying

Stratics Veteran

Prime example of one of the many reasons they can never get anything done in this game.

You state that as a self-evident truth. I see it and immediately recoil from it, because I in general hate the idea of the "permanent event." I think there should be a strict separation between permanent content and event content, with the exception that sometimes temporary events can be used to introduce permanent content.

No way to reconcile our positions, really. Well in practice yes but not philosophically.

Personally I don't like that things are unobtainable after events are gone. I mean hey deco stuff fine..... unobtainable... but things like the cloaks, robes, talismans, dreadwarhorses and the like..... NOT COOL. These things give massive advantage to those that have and those that have not.

Stratics Veteran

Prime example of one of the many reasons they can never get anything done in this game.

You state that as a self-evident truth. I see it and immediately recoil from it, because I in general hate the idea of the "permanent event." I think there should be a strict separation between permanent content and event content, with the exception that sometimes temporary events can be used to introduce permanent content.

No way to reconcile our positions, really. Well in practice yes but not philosophically.

-Galen's player

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So maybe they should stop doing these limited time only events i cant see how spending time on these bring the game forward at all
I m fine with that also focus everything on permanent content

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Fixes are being done... We as the public ask for what takes months to write and debug to be done when we stamp our little toes! Well grow up and smell the coffee kiddies its not that easy. Factions was busted the day they opened it up for testing to us counselors... we told them the problems.. but that dev team didnt want to hear it and put out a shoddy mess anyways. Through the years I have to give the sucessors of that dev the quodos for trying. Factions was dieing way before this recient change thought I'd like to point out. It seriously needed the vamping or it would need the scrapping I and many others have called for over the years. (yes I played factions a few times over the years)

I and many have suguested to return to the old ways ... Chaos & Order was a more basic set up and didnt have the sevier troubles factions has been stuck with for the life of it.

Main Reason many old players are leaving is not quite so easy to pin point at first but I think I can shed some lite on things ....

1. Time
We forget many of us have changed jobs or family has grown to take up more of it. When you have only 24 hours to do 32 worth of things that need doing .... well uo is sol.
2. Finances
For the most part many of us know the tight fiscal set up that has griped the country... alot of jobs have poofed! Some have used their holdings to make a few $$ to cover bases but to be honest, a job hunt takes alot of #1.
3. Bordom
Well this one is not the game itself... but the growing apethy of games in general. With the growing variaty we have become use to the fact there is more then just UO. In 97 there was a very very small list of games out there for the public to play. (remember this was also the era a computer was still in the 2 - 5 k range Not a kids toy) UO as we all know is one of the oldest online games and one of the most diverse. But its not Mass Effect3... A friend of mine who was a devoute uo player quit a few years ago and has gone through so many other online and box games that would fill a good section in a game store! Bordom is a symtom of glut. Too much eye candy.
4. Real Life
Kids, Spouce's, Family trips, vacations, life in general changes with seasons and age. As it goes with the average uo player. We hate to see the game loose such long time players but we must understand they have stuck to uo like glue for soooo long murphy was adament to move them!
I say to all I know..... Real Life comes in first... the game dead last. And I mean it. My kids, family all know I play, but can count on me to be there when I am wantedand needed at a seconds notice. I dont care if the uberest thing in the game is there for me to pick up.... It's only pixels. They are my blood and bone and get first attention allways.

Patients is a virtue... practice being virtueous... Give the new head of the roost at Mythic time... he has years and tons of past Dev teams crap to sort and toss. It's not easy being the boss. It's not all sitting in a chair and reading a comic book(though they would love to try!) A real boss has his fingers and mind on his job and works long hours to get what is expected of him done. Not always on time mind you as we all know murphy is the real boss. And his rule is law of the universe- What can go wrong Will go wrong.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

It is particularly frustrating when players post ideas or past events that they liked. Small tweaks to some of these, and you could retread old invasions, themes, fights, etc. every couple of months. Over time, this would be very simple to keep up, and then the Degvs could focus on the larger picture.

Example: Tun bakc on ToT for 1.5 months. In that time, work it into another champ spawn (Oaks for example), and run that for 1.5 months. etc.
Redo the holloween sperkles, but change uop the rewards and storyline (to remove the halloweeness of it).

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This is a great idea. There have been numerous great events in the past that worked well. Why throw it away and implement something tedious that players don't like?

Stratics Veteran

I think what UO is starting to see is it's finally fallen below the threshhold where people keep accounts open just becaue their friends still play the game, no matter how much the devs have messed up the game time and time again that's carried it through, as, lets face it, when you have a lot of friends in game you don't really want to feel like you're "abandoning" them even if you're no longer really having fun. Most mmo's are like this to a point where barely a minority of the playerbase even enjoys the game and the rest just stick around. With each disasterously broken expansion released before even bothering to complete OR fix the previous one... and broken promise (Classic shard, faction revamp, etc...etc...) more players leave and the population right now is lower than it's ever been. Now when people get fed up, unlike before, the pull to stay from having more friends in game is pretty much gone as most of those friends have already left themselves, making it a lot easier to just walk away from the game.

Personally I think it's beyond the point of no return now, years of doing things that nobody really wants and ignoring glaring issues in game, while not the current dev teams fault, have damaged the game to the point where the overall population will continue to decline no matter what, even if a lot of the old bugs and problems are fixed. Once you let too many people move on for a game so old there's little that can be done to pull a sizeable crowd back. Sure the game will still last for some time, but the damage is done, unless they "relaunch" as UO2 we'll never see a sizeable population again

Stratics Veteran

Hey Pinco you strapped on a pair of milkbone underwear in a dog park with this topic. But I want to give you credit for developing a UI that has helped many people stay in this game. It has made the EC more appealing overall and you have done a service to UO. But your thoughts on what would make the game more interesting are a little misguided. Before tackling new expansions, story lines, or content lets at least get everything else working to a decent level then start looking at new content or even some type of reasonable gold sink. Nobody will ever be totally happy but some things are really broken and need attention before anything new can be implemented.

Stratics VeteranAlumni

Milkbone underwear...I like that LOL
Another thing I liked was the idea to turn ToT back on, and instead of creating yet even more events and what have you, add a couple more tiers of rewards to the system. that would keep people going for a little while, at least.
Not too sure what to do about EM events, while I like the concept, and like the EMs and the program, I think the events sometimes run way too long...have seen a few of ours go on till like the wee hours of the morning.
Reforging and imbuing?? time will tell, I have been screaming for years to simplify the crafting system, move it back closer to what it used to be. You think you had to be a math genius before? Wait till returning players realize now we have mod weights, soul charges, reaxctive paralyze, and a whole host of stuff to remember now. Some of the items I'm taking out of shame are just crazy...The descriptors take up the whole screeen!
Anyway, carry on...just the rantings of an old lunatic

I agree with the gold part. I would introduce more types, like bronze coins maybe even find a check. I mean if you're killing a human type, why not but I would put a timer on them so they would all decay and I would cap gold amount in the bank. I just believe that you can have money within items, so you really don't need to have limitless gold. It should not be the only way to gauge value.

Death is a tough one. The only thing I could think of would be, stat loss but only for a short period, like 3 minutes, anything else would just be wasting game play but I might stack the penalty, making the character unplayable for a time, like, 3 minutes, 6 minutes, 9 minutes, cap. Stat x 1 10% x 2 20% x 3 30%. I don't believe in taking away anything that has been earned and using a system to just randomly take. Once a player has established any type of item it should not decay or be taken. Aging might be alittle different but you could still perhaps, find an elixir or a fountain so that your original age could show but you would act and appear much younger but with virtues and loyalties, my opinion is you would have to perform a physical action to reverse or to lower those attributes. For example: A man who dies, does not lose who he was simply because time has passed. He will always be who he was in history.

These are all very tough to me because it changes things drastically and even though I like adding things to the game, I hate to be the one to change it and last the carrot and the stick and game play. The first thing I would do and you could create a super long list but I would mainly call it and base it on incentive. For example: Bonuses to your character. The basic ones would be the log in bonus, then it would be, the stay on bonus, then it would be, you were in this area bonus. So, if you just had your character in an area for a long time, where most people would be dieing, you might receive a temporary boost in skill or stats. Maybe you could move quicker.

So, somebody logs on, maybe there would be a random chance at winning something, maybe there would be a standard log in bonus. Maybe you wouldn't have to pay insurance upon death or your vendors for one day would not charge you as much or your boat would be 40% harder to scuttle. Maybe you could pick the reward and as you log in every day you earn the reward. For example: 10 days in a row or 20 days in a row, maybe would make it stronger.

Farming, I think, is a must. As a matter of fact, I think they should add farming. You have to remember these items don't stay around forever and once they begin to stack, they start to lose value but if you give the player something to be proud of then that becomes the ultimate goal and that is what is needed in Ultima. For example: The plant system. When you grow a plant, it should not die, it should age and as it recycles for resources, it should take alittle longer, like a couple of days but the ultimate goal is no longer the resource, it is now preserving the life of the plant. So, if I have a plant that is 100 years old or 300 years old, it becomes valuable and if I sell it to someone while it is alive they to receive the burden of keeping it alive and now, emotion and feeling come into play because when a plant dies it has meaning.

So, farming could also have this type of feeling or pride where you could build up quality, experience, power, age, plus you could earn money by just selling the item.

Like the library quest and clean up Britain quest. For me, there's not enough pride of achievement. For example: The NPCs are asking us, for a set number of something so that we receive a prize or we know how many we need to receive a reward but there's no feeling, it's empty. I can't find myself drawn to that system.

When I started playing, I would make bows, then take the bows and sell them to an NPC or meat where you would kill an animal and then sell the meat. I was taught how to do this, it worked into the game like survival. Now the demon claws come close to that with imbuing but I think there is still room for the roleplay to be increased. For example: If I kill a bear, we'll just imagine it's harder to beat and it attacks me and on it there's a possibility to receive 5 different things. Bear claw, bear pelt, bear teeth, bear paw, and a bear head. So, now each one of these items would have value. So, if you got one of them you could take them back and sell them for gold. Some being rare and worth a million gold, others being common.

Now, this doesn't really work with the other systems because you're not earning money. So, it has nothing to do with survival, making this system worthless or meaningless. Of course, this is just my opinion but those systems seem to be mute in ways but this also gives meaning to the spawn. Like, if an NPC had a powerful axe that it attacked you with, it would be harder to kill because of the axe but when you killed it, it would have the axe on it. It doesn't make sense to me, to find the axe on it but the NPC never used it. So, there's this whole logic thing, you know how many carrots are people willing to follow or how many carrots can one eat without getting sick.

I'm also a strong believer in building a calendar and incorporating weather. I've also suggested real time so that if you come on a night, it will be dark and there will be different spawns. If it's winter time then there will be snow on the ground and if it's Christmas morning there will be a star in the sky. This is another incentive to log in, a curiousity. When you log in, is the game like your world, do you open up a present under the tree and get socks or did your wife buy you a new truck?

So, I think if these systems, such as holidays and some that were created to work with the game such as Tok, in a sense they would always be active, they would always be a part of the game and they could be improved but how could somebody quit the game, for example, if they looked at the calendar and said, hey look, what's coming up or maybe they would say, hey look, my favorite spawn is going to be spawning soon.

But then again, you could always argue, quality is not necessarily the best way to go.

Stratics Veteran

So maybe they should stop doing these limited time only events i cant see how spending time on these bring the game forward at all
I m fine with that also focus everything on permanent content

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I'm not.

This is fantasy. What draws people to fantasy are books, movies, poems, television shows, etc. And those portray the extraordinary moments, the extraordinary times, when armies of White Walkers and Dark Lords and renegade ******* sons threaten life and stability and moral order. Those are, by definition, temporary. Even in fantasy the clock is not always ticking; at minimum sometimes it's reset. I have always loved how UO allowed us to play our characters' lives besides those extraordinary moments. But to think that there should be a fantasy environment where those moments do not occur, where everything is permanent, and where the characters' everyday lives are literally all we have is preposterous and sounds rather boring.

Not to mention that, even now, there are complaints that the world is too big, that there's enough to do that the size of the world itself disguises how many players remain and makes us seem a smaller community than we are. Now, imagine permanent content added forever.

"But we can keep redesigning old places!" Surely. And we could keep doing that forever, until of course we finally run out of places and have to restart and then people complain that they missed out on how the old places were before the changes.

And then, of course, how long before someone complains that there's no scenarios, no temporary content, no storyline(s). Not long.

UO at its best can supply both permanent content (a gaming environment to play in) and temporary content (scenarios and other extraordinary events). To argue that one shouldn't be there at all is just as obviously ridiculous as arguing that the other shouldn't be there at all.

Stratics Veteran

Farming, I think, is a must. As a matter of fact, I think they should add farming. You have to remember these items don't stay around forever and once they begin to stack, they start to lose value but if you give the player something to be proud of then that becomes the ultimate goal and that is what is needed in Ultima. For example: The plant system. When you grow a plant, it should not die, it should age and as it recycles for resources, it should take alittle longer, like a couple of days but the ultimate goal is no longer the resource, it is now preserving the life of the plant. So, if I have a plant that is 100 years old or 300 years old, it becomes valuable and if I sell it to someone while it is alive they to receive the burden of keeping it alive and now, emotion and feeling come into play because when a plant dies it has meaning.

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I agree they should add farming I also agree with most of your post but i think when they add systems like this that are very close to things we can do in real life they need to make them more crazy i look at breewing in uo it is a very good system but not many use it the lack of a reward is one thing but where is the humour i like to see a liquor that turn your skinn neon for 5 minutes (Mesanna did this to a guy at WBB on Atlantic) or a type of brandy that add ISH after every word u type or Ale that make you puke all the time (Fawnish ale from u7 part 2)

Same thing if they added Farming a little bit of humour dont harm anyone maybe let uss grow killerpumpkins or man eating plants need to be something completly out of the ordinary
A good system some ok or good rewards and a big chunk of humour could be a winner so yes plz devs add farming

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

I agree they should add farming I also agree with most of your post but i think when they add systems like this that are very close to things we can do in real life they need to make them more crazy i look at breewing in uo it is a very good system but not many use it the lack of a reward is one thing but where is the humour i like to see a liquor that turn your skinn neon for 5 minutes (Mesanna did this to a guy at WBB on Atlantic) or a type of brandy that add ISH after every word u type or Ale that make you puke all the time (Fawnish ale from u7 part 2)

Same thing if they added Farming a little bit of humour dont harm anyone maybe let uss grow killerpumpkins or man eating plants need to be something completly out of the ordinary
A good system some ok or good rewards and a big chunk of humour could be a winner so yes plz devs add farming

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farming is the game killer... basically you can make a script to play without any manual intervention for it.

I think the best thing to do is adding a tier matrix to the basic spawns so even if you like farming the things will changes and you must start to use the brain instead of being a drolling monkey that just press the same button continuously.

Here is the idea:

Everytime you kill a monster there is an increasing chance to pass to the next tier: +1% every kill (100 kills = next tier).
The chance is tied to the spawn and not to the player.

Every new tier will double the spawn amount and makes the monsters a little stronger (+ res + hp). When you reach finish the tier 3, the spawn goes to the next level.
In order to pass to the next tier you must kill all the monsters spawned.

Every new level restarts the spawn with the basic spawn amount of monsters but the basic stats of the monsters starts improved by 5% and extra speed.

The spawn will reset automatically after 30 minutes if there are no more kills.

Everytime you pass to the next tier you get the message: "The spawn became stronger (TIER x)"

Everytime you pass to the next level you get the message: "The spawn evolves in something more powerful (LEVEL x)."

Tamable creatures should requires higher skills to be tamed while the tiers/levels grows up.

An example:
the spawn starts at level 1 tier 1, there is 1 monster with plain stats.

you kill 90 of this monsters and the spwan step to tier 2, now the monster has +5 to all res and + 100 hp. There are 2 monsters.

you kill 50 monsters and the spwan step to tier 3, the monster now has +15 all res and + 500 hp. There are 4 monsters.

you kill 70 monsters and the spwan step to level 2 tier 1, the monsters has +5 all res, + 100 hp and his speed is increased by 10%. There is 1 monster.

you kill 80 monsters and the spwan step to level 2 tier 2, the monster has +10 all res, + 200 hp. There are 2 monsters.

you kill 40 monsters and the spwan step to level 2 tier 3, the monster has +20 all res, +600 hp. There are 4 monsters.

and so on...

At some point the monsters became too strong to be killed and you are forced to leave. This will also give a purpose because even if you can't get arties or things, you may want to reach higher levels to prove yourself. There could also be a hall of records where to read who reach the higher level

Everytime you kill a monster there is an increasing chance to pass to the next tier: +1% every kill (100 kills = next tier).
The chance is tied to the spawn and not to the player.

Every new tier will double the spawn amount and makes the monsters a little stronger (+ res + hp). When you reach finish the tier 3, the spawn goes to the next level.
In order to pass to the next tier you must kill all the monsters spawned

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I like it and I can see u put some thinking into this but my favorite hunting spot might always be at the highest tier if alot of other people like that spot aswell i know it is not the same thing but what if it was tied to the player instead
Lets say every 30 or so monsters the dmg you could do to that type of monster would dropp and if u do the same type of monsters long enough you could not do any dmg at all

This system of yours is so very diffrent than what we have today so i think many would be against it
for me it would work i dont like to hunt one spot too long anyway

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Sry my english is not that good i was speaking about farming like growing things just another system like growing plants you think that is a game killer ?

I like it and I can see u put some thinking into this but my favorite hunting spot might always be at the highest tier if alot of other people like that spot aswell i know it is not the same thing but what if it was tied to the player instead
Lets say every 30 or so monsters the dmg you could do to that type of monster would dropp and if u do the same type of monsters long enough you could not do any dmg at all

This system of yours is so very diffrent than what we have today so i think many would be against it
for me it would work i dont like to hunt one spot too long anyway

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for farming I speak about doing the same thing again and again and again and again in order to obtain something

the point of my idea is increase the number of monsters so if there are several players who like the same place they can play there and also help when the monsters became very tough

Stratics Veteran

I wrote that to tease u a bit because i know u like live events I like them aswell and we should they are for uss the existing players but right now i feel they add alot of live content on the expense of the game world we play in it is holiday deco to keep uss happy for awhile and forget we live in a ramshackle house

And after the live event is done and everything get removed from the game then what
Trow all that dev time in the garbage ? here is me thinking that every hour put into the game should make the game better

Prime example of one of the many reasons they can never get anything done in this game.

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And why is that i see no harm at all keeping some pices or complete events permanent it can only improve the game

ex
This last event Keep those puzzles in exodus they can only make that place better just change the rewards it could be gold,gems maybe even runic tinker tools
The rioters Another way to gain in a virtue perhaps
The ophidian war why cant there be a war going on there it is a waste land the way it is now

And i dont believe you when you say we would run out of space 50% of the land in uo is more or less waste land that no one use and if in a distant future we would run out of space stuff can be removed

UO at its best can supply both permanent content (a gaming environment to play in) and temporary content (scenarios and other extraordinary events). To argue that one shouldn't be there at all is just as obviously ridiculous as arguing that the other shouldn't be there at all.
-Galen's player

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True but if u ask me that is not now permanent content always should come first without it there is no future for uo all live events for the last 10 years is wasted dev time for a player that start to play today

I agree with the gold part. I would introduce more types, like bronze coins maybe even find a check. I mean if you're killing a human type, why not but I would put a timer on them so they would all decay and I would cap gold amount in the bank. I just believe that you can have money within items, so you really don't need to have limitless gold. It should not be the only way to gauge value.

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I don't think you want to make it more complex. When it became item-based, that ramped up the complexity quite a bit. Go look at all of the threads about people building certain templates. Returning players are already at a disadvantage.

I'm also a strong believer in building a calendar and incorporating weather. I've also suggested real time so that if you come on a night, it will be dark and there will be different spawns. If it's winter time then there will be snow on the ground and if it's Christmas morning there will be a star in the sky. This is another incentive to log in, a curiousity.

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I have to admit, in other MMORPGs, the various weather changes, festivals, etc. really do add to the immersion/desire to login. I'm a sucker for big festivals and I'm a sucker for those parts of a game world where there is different/bad weather.

Go look at all of the threads about people building certain templates. Returning players are already at a disadvantage.

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I agree, and many returning say they're sorry they did. How sad. They built and trained when skill meant something. They reach for that carrot only to be hit with a stick when they find their trusted friends, the skills they worked hard for, Worthless. They might as well have started from scratch. I think there's something really wrong going on in UO. Makes me think again of Cal's statement: "Get 'em in, Get 'em out", was he really talking about subscriptions?

Stratics Veteran

I wrote that to tease u a bit because i know u like live events I like them aswell and we should they are for uss the existing players but right now i feel they add alot of live content on the expense of the game world we play in it is holiday deco to keep uss happy for awhile and forget we live in a ramshackle house

And after the live event is done and everything get removed from the game then what
Trow all that dev time in the garbage ? here is me thinking that every hour put into the game should make the game better

I said
If possible make the event permanent

you said

And why is that i see no harm at all keeping some pices or complete events permanent it can only improve the game

ex
This last event Keep those puzzles in exodus they can only make that place better just change the rewards it could be gold,gems maybe even runic tinker tools
The rioters Another way to gain in a virtue perhaps
The ophidian war why cant there be a war going on there it is a waste land the way it is now

And i dont believe you when you say we would run out of space 50% of the land in uo is more or less waste land that no one use and if in a distant future we would run out of space stuff can be removed

True but if u ask me that is not now permanent content always should come first without it there is no future for uo all live events for the last 10 years is wasted dev time for a player that start to play today

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Hmm. I doubt I'll get to respond to all of this.

Firstly, it was quite plain that reference I made to "why nothing can get done" was not to your position, as you imply it was. Rather, plainly, it was to the disagreement between you and I. Both of us consider our own positions self-evident, and while there is a practical way to reconcile us there is no way to do so philosophically. No matter what EA does or doesn't do in this game the gap will remain between you and I and that kind of division is one of many reasons EA can't do anything. Damned, they are, one way or the other.

Looking over the rest of the post, none of it really makes any sense unless you start from the perspective that the only content in the game should be permanent. (You make one empirical claim that you can't possibly verify: That live content comes at the expense of permanent content. I really doubt that's true.)

They do on occasion do scenarios that are basically an excuse to add permanent content. The prime example would be the orc/savage scenario from years back. A lot of that is still in. Another example would be the Solen scenario from years back. A lot of that is still in. To say that those kinds of events are the only ones they should have is rather ridiculous. It would mean they could never do anything big picture, because any war or invasion they start would by definition have to be going on all the time.

Think about Middle Earth always caught in the grip of the War of the Ring.

Per your logic Trinsic would have been overrun with Undead for about a dozen years. Or, I suppose, that famous invasion of days gone by would never have been able to happen at all.

So maybe they should stop doing these limited time only events i cant see how spending time on these bring the game forward at all

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Actually, I think that IS how they bring the game forward. Ever watched something at FF? then hit play after a few minutes. UO is like that, where it slows down for a moment to let a bit of history be seen, and experienced. After a time, it jumps ahead. The rockslide in Ilsh... Happened overnight? yeah, to us. Months to them, Organizing planning,locating the hurt/dead. Climbing expeditions over the top. Gun powder keg production, etc etc. but you get the idea, just a page in time

I have to admit, in other MMORPGs, the various weather changes, festivals, etc. really do add to the immersion/desire to login. I'm a sucker for big festivals and I'm a sucker for those parts of a game world where there is different/bad weather.

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It has been raining in Yew for about 8 years nearly non-stop. Frankly, I'm a bit over 'bad weather'

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

There's one small problem with the consistent theory that "death is meaningless." And that is this: It's a game. I completely disagree with the idea that death needs to have a high, tangible value in order to make gameplay fun. If anything, an increase in the "death tax" is going to decrease the number of players even further. Certainly, for the above-average player, the veteran player, and the "I script everything including my toilet-breaks" player, there will be very little meaning to death (unless, of course, you implement a 10% of your gold tax, and even then, people will just not keep their gold in the bank except for enough to appease the fee). For newer and casual players, your proposed death tax will do nothing but drive them further out of the game.

In fact, death doesn't have to be anything more than inconvenient to make a point that you should avoid death. However, making it a strong deterrent to gameplay is a mistake.

As for gold, I've been championing virtual gold for nearly as long as I've championed the implementation of unique naming. They could even combat identical first names by requiring a last name. And for those oddballs, give a free name choice, and force the choice. But get rid of duplicate naming so that at least on an individual shard you're sure of who it is you're speaking to.

Resurrection... only the PvPers care about how resurrection affects anything, and there aren't enough PvPers around to care how it's handled anymore. They're already doing a fine enough job killing factions that death to a PvPers is going to be pointless anyway.

Rewards... heh. This game needs a major overhaul in rewards as it is. And one that doesn't cause items you're wearing to go poof.

But back to death... look, there's really no reason to tax death more. If anything, they should tax it even less. I mean, yeah, I know there's some mythical presumption that death and item decay cause the crafting systems to be useful. Ask most of your crafters how useful they feel their individual crafting system is these days. Even still, making crafting viable again would have little to do with death, and item decay could supplement the system instead of overhand it.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

The true issue is that everything requires to farm something, and this is what kills the game...

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Every game requires you to farm something. It's not the act of farming that is killing the game, it's the quantity of farming required vs. the reward obtained by said farming.

Ultima Online has, for the past 10 or so years, been developed with the mindset of the overachiever/cheater/lowest common denominator must be dealt with first. This is why casual players cannot even remotely begin to compete with obtaining items from the various donations... because they were designed to make it challenging for the scripters and 40-hour+ players. This is also why we received random resources... because god forbid a casual player should know where to go to mine or gather a particular resource (god, if there was ONE system I'd implement from WoW it would be their method of gatherables).

And the rate of decay on current stuff is so ludicrous that the casual player -- of which I currently count myself as part of -- just simply cannot keep up with. If you don't play at least a couple of hours a day, you're pretty much screwed.

No... it's not the gathering that's the issue. It's the implementation.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Personally I don't like that things are unobtainable after events are gone. I mean hey deco stuff fine..... unobtainable... but things like the cloaks, robes, talismans, dreadwarhorses and the like..... NOT COOL. These things give massive advantage to those that have and those that have not.

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Actually, it still drives me crazy that deco stuff doesn't remain craftable. The number of silly things that have come and gone... oy.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

Actually, it still drives me crazy that deco stuff doesn't remain craftable. The number of silly things that have come and gone... oy.

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I reckon 'deco' reward items should have an option - keep it as deco, or a skilled enough crafter can take it apart and learn how to make the 'recipe', so they can manufacture copies (which looks slightly different to keep the rarity of the originals) and people can still get hold of things they like the look of.

Stratics Veteran

I agree, and many returning say they're sorry they did. How sad. They built and trained when skill meant something. They reach for that carrot only to be hit with a stick when they find their trusted friends, the skills they worked hard for, Worthless. They might as well have started from scratch. I think there's something really wrong going on in UO. Makes me think again of Cal's statement: "Get 'em in, Get 'em out", was he really talking about subscriptions?

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Well, skill still does mean something...only AFTER you build your suit to matching levels.

Suits allow templates to build on their strengths and mitigate some of their weaknesses...however you NEED to have your suit built up BEFORE your skill matters very much.

I would add that although there is a lot of people leaving.. I have noticed an increase in people returning or joining the game also. There are a good few threads on UOforums with people stating that they are coming back after 10+ years.. Personally to keep things positive why not focus on that instead of the people who no longer find the game enjoyable.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

I would add that although there is a lot of people leaving.. I have noticed an increase in people returning or joining the game also. There are a good few threads on UOforums with people stating that they are coming back after 10+ years.. Personally to keep things positive why not focus on that instead of the people who no longer find the game enjoyable.

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New player and returning ones always looks for veteran advices, and that's why is more important to keep up the veterans morale than bring new people in...
If a new player see a veteran that plays by 15 years and still excited, surely will enjoy the game much more than see sad hopless veterans who pray for something fun to do.

I don't think anyone really leaves UO. It's a game that stays with you, it's unique. You can't go play another game and really get close to what UO is, plus, UO has more potential. The Devs are like in the center of this creating universe that everybody watches and waits for.

I agree with Pinco, there should be something like paragons every where you go, maybe even tier the paragons. If I could gauge the spawn, I would use the number killed and the speed of the kill so that when the paragon spawned, it would represent those numbers and then the paragon could reproduce itself depending on how fast it was killed, which might off set a super spawn. Some type of raging boss with minions. So, someone might be careful not to kill to quickly but it does cross your mind when you're using a Sampire that you could just go get a drink or maybe answer the door and then end up going to the store and come back because your character can just stand there. So, I think we should think about that as far as farming and not being there.

As far as death and penalties, it's not really necessary but if you look at the give and take, for example: If you increase monster power and you increase the character's hit points, you allow for less death. So, if you're going to look at those different perspectives, you might start to think about different penalties. So, just theoretically, what would you do to make death meaningful and if you didn't make it something annoying, what could you do to make it more fun?

If you were going to add something into the game, such as weather or day and night or even a calendar, these things could then be used as tools. Now, when we have something happen in the game, like a War, they can be kind of bland. For example: Imagine a powerful wizard who taps into the power of weather and he uses it to destroy his enemy. Perhaps, he has a crystal that he can use to channel ideas and emotions into the actions of the weather itself. Now, without weather, you could not use this story but if you had weather you could make an amazing story and with a calendar you could build off of the different dates and create a better history. More tools for the designers rather than having to implement something, you would now have switches, where if you were using things in an event you could turn them on and off.

So, if you had something happen as a story line, you would feed off of all of the systems. Maybe you could freeze the ocean, so once you're able to do that you can add it to a story or maybe just freeze part of the ocean, then you could have floating ice burgs but unless you start to build off of the systems, you really have nothing to work with and for me it goes back to time itself. How can people experience or feel the story line without feeling like they're part of the world. So, you might have things that are permanent but it doesn't mean that they cannot change. It just means that they will happen no matter what. It doesn't mean that they won't all be different. Sometimes rain can be a gentle rain, sometimes the breeze could be a cool nice breeze with fresh air but it doesn't mean it will always be like that.

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

I don't think anyone really leaves UO. It's a game that stays with you, it's unique. You can't go play another game and really get close to what UO is, plus, UO has more potential. The Devs are like in the center of this creating universe that everybody watches and waits for.

I agree with Pinco, there should be something like paragons every where you go, maybe even tier the paragons. If I could gauge the spawn, I would use the number killed and the speed of the kill so that when the paragon spawned, it would represent those numbers and then the paragon could reproduce itself depending on how fast it was killed, which might off set a super spawn. Some type of raging boss with minions. So, someone might be careful not to kill to quickly but it does cross your mind when you're using a Sampire that you could just go get a drink or maybe answer the door and then end up going to the store and come back because your character can just stand there. So, I think we should think about that as far as farming and not being there.

As far as death and penalties, it's not really necessary but if you look at the give and take, for example: If you increase monster power and you increase the character's hit points, you allow for less death. So, if you're going to look at those different perspectives, you might start to think about different penalties. So, just theoretically, what would you do to make death meaningful and if you didn't make it something annoying, what could you do to make it more fun?

If you were going to add something into the game, such as weather or day and night or even a calendar, these things could then be used as tools. Now, when we have something happen in the game, like a War, they can be kind of bland. For example: Imagine a powerful wizard who taps into the power of weather and he uses it to destroy his enemy. Perhaps, he has a crystal that he can use to channel ideas and emotions into the actions of the weather itself. Now, without weather, you could not use this story but if you had weather you could make an amazing story and with a calendar you could build off of the different dates and create a better history. More tools for the designers rather than having to implement something, you would now have switches, where if you were using things in an event you could turn them on and off.

So, if you had something happen as a story line, you would feed off of all of the systems. Maybe you could freeze the ocean, so once you're able to do that you can add it to a story or maybe just freeze part of the ocean, then you could have floating ice burgs but unless you start to build off of the systems, you really have nothing to work with and for me it goes back to time itself. How can people experience or feel the story line without feeling like they're part of the world. So, you might have things that are permanent but it doesn't mean that they cannot change. It just means that they will happen no matter what. It doesn't mean that they won't all be different. Sometimes rain can be a gentle rain, sometimes the breeze could be a cool nice breeze with fresh air but it doesn't mean it will always be like that.

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before going to complex matters like day and night, we need an improvements to the basic AI... for example in the current event they burn everything and the vendors stay there in the middle of the flames like nothing happens
They should at least run and scream something....

However this game has a HUGE potential that can be used to improve it... with a serious investment and passion this game can really became the top MMORPG

Stratics VeteranStratics Legend

UO is the typ of game that is as fun as you want it to be... thats been my belief from the start

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is fun if you are pretty new and don't know anything about it... after 14 years if you know all the places, all the mechanics and you have already killed every single kind of creatures thousands of time, you understand the fact that it's always the same....
The difference between the UO life and REAL life is that real life offer random events, everything could happen at any moment. In UO everything is always the same, no surprises... like watching a movie, you may hope for a different ending but it's always the same...

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